A peaceful transition

Amid all the excitement surrounding the inauguration ceremony Tuesday, not much attention was paid to the opening remarks by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She spoke of the peaceful transfer of power about to take place, and of the "the supremacy of the ballot over the bullet." Nothing novel or surprising there -- but it's worth remembering that as Americans we are lucky to be able to take all that for granted.

As much as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to build up the power of the presidency, it always rested on the consent of the governed. There was no heir apparent, no Republican Guard to hold power by force. This week's "regime change" may prove to have been revolutionary, but it was accomplished in a peaceful, orderly, even courteous fashion.

Pushed to the side was the bitterness of the election campaign as well as recriminations over abuses of power by the Bush administration -- cooked intelligence, Guantanamo, warrantless surveillance, and "extraordinary rendition."

As a nation we can't afford to forget or ignore those abuses, and we must guard against attempts by future presidents -- including Obama -- to continue expanding the power of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the law. It was good to see the new president, in his first hours in office, call a halt to the military prosecution of terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center where about 245 people remain in legal limbo. The Associated Press reported the new administration is preparing an executive order to close the center within a year after determining which inmates should be released and which should be brought to trial.

"Gitmo" is one of the black marks on the nation's honor left by the Bush administration. Even assuming that a quick roundup of suspected terrorists in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was warranted, or at least understandable, there is no excuse seven years later for continuing to hold people in an extra-legal prison where they are presumed guilty and denied the rights of either criminals or POWs.

As he moves to reverse such policies, Obama has fended off calls for special investigations or even war-crimes prosecutions of the previous administration. He's right on both counts. The prospect of the new president having his predecessor arrested is something most Americans do not want to contemplate. Like President Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon, Obama is more interested in healing than deepening our divisions and in moving forward rather than looking back.

And so the new president watched and waved on Tuesday as the helicopter bearing the new ex-president rose over the Capitol grounds, completing another peaceful transition in this 232-year-old democracy.